Meet Magenta: Digital Services Manager Alkis Marangos

Meet Magenta: Digital Services Manager Alkis Marangos

Welcome to a new recurring feature on addmagenta.com, Meet Magenta. As the newest team member, I’ll be speaking with my colleagues every month to get to know them better and, in the process, introduce them to our readers.

Q: Who are you, and what do you do here at Magenta?

A: My name is Alkis Marangos and I’m the Digital Services Manager.

Q: What led you to work here? What was the path you took to get to Magenta?

A: I was looking for a digital marketing agency to work for, and when I started interviewing, I liked the people here, the structure of the company and how everything was organized. It was very important to me that I would be working with people that have been in the industry for many years and have a lot of established success with clients all over the world.

Q: How long have you been interested in your field, and what sparked that interest?

A: I’ve been doing digital marketing for nearly a decade. I actually started with analytics; I always saw people doing things in their marketing programs and they’d never read the results or even just go back and evaluate what they were doing, so I started getting into Google Analytics. Before I knew it, I was fascinated about the depth of online marketing initiatives and how to connect the dots across digital programs.

Q: How has digital marketing changed since you first started in the industry?

A: Digital marketing is constantly evolving, so keeping up with all the trends can be a challenge. Undoubtedly the most significant evolution of digital marketing within the last decade has been the increasing use of mobile devices, which has changed how we consume content and shifted design paradigms in digital contexts.

Another significant change has been the evolution of search engine algorithms. As they’ve gotten better at promoting content that is useful for readers, people have shifted away from a strategy that was trying to “trick” search engines and toward creating meaningful content.

Last but not least, the rise of social media and the use of live video streaming is another area that has and will continue to significantly change what we do as digital marketers. And we have every reason to believe that virtual and augmented reality will be the next frontier despite their slower-than-anticipated growth.

Q: What’s your favorite thing you get to do at work?

A: Making clients happy!

Q: How does your work and your department’s work help our clients succeed?

A: Preparation and research are the keys to our success. We emphasize spending a lot of time upfront to understand our clients and their objectives, analyze the internal/external market forces and research the competition. It’s the foundation of our success.

We operate under the motto of maximizing return. My team regularly measures and analyzes the impact of our digital activities on our clients’ business so that at any time, we have the information and flexibility necessary to reallocate spending in a way that maximizes clients’ investment.

Q: What’s the fuel for your workday? What gets you through the day every day?

A: Coffee. I drink two big cups in my huge, favorite mug. The one with my favorite Greek team’s logo on it, Panathinaikos F.C. I call it the most well-traveled mug in the world. My mother-in-law bought it for me while we were together in Greece one summer, traveled back to Cyprus with it and then brought it to the U.S. so she could give it to me as a Christmas present. I took it to Cyprus with me in 2010 and I brought it back to the U.S. when I moved here in 2015.

Q: What are your professional goals for this year?

A: Fully implementing Salesforce within the agency.

Q: Are you a morning person or a night owl? Why?

A: I can be both? I don’t like to sleep much, so I used to be a morning person but I’m turning more into a night person.

Q: Oh, so are you one of those people who only needs four hours of sleep a night?

A: Pretty much yeah, I’d be happy with that.

Q: As far as media goes, what would you say is your guilty pleasure?

A: Sitcoms that have inappropriate comments but I nevertheless find funny, like Married with Children, Eastbound and Down and Two and a Half Men.

Q: What would you say is your favorite piece of media if you were trying to impress someone?

A: Business Insider. That’s the one website I always turn to, it has a variety of things across all sections so you can find news about anything.

Q: If you had a superpower, what would it be?

A: I could read people’s minds.

Q: If you could completely devote yourself to mastering a new skill, what would it be?

A: I would become the best soccer player in the world. That was my passion.

Q: What’s your favorite restaurant in Indianapolis?

A: Canal Bistro in Broad Ripple is one of my favorites.

Q: Oh, really, I’ve never been, what kind of food do they do?

A: It’s Mediterranean food but it’s got a little bit of Greek and Middle Eastern food so I like it. It’s good, consistent food, and they’ve got a Cyprus beer I like called Keo.

Q: Where’s your favorite place to go in Indy on a sunny summer day?

A: I like the Monon. I don’t do it as much as I like, but sometimes I’ll take my bike and take the trail from one end to the other.